April 29, 2026

The GPS III Rollout Is Almost Complete, But What Is It? (Source: Hackaday)
Just last week, the tenth GPS III satellite was placed in orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Once it’s properly configured and operational, it will join its peers to form the first complete “block” of third-generation GPS satellites. Over the next decade, as many as 22 revised GPS III satellites are slated to take their position over the Earth, eventually replacing all of the aging satellites that billions of people currently rely on.

So what new capabilities do these third-generation GPS satellites offer, and why has it taken so long to implement needed upgrades in such a critical system? The new signals being transmitted by GPS III satellites won’t just be louder than their predecessors, they’ll gain some new features as well. For one thing, GPS III satellites will transmit a standardized signal known as L1C which offers interoperability with other global navigation systems such as Europe’s Galileo, China’s BeiDou, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.

In theory a compatible receiver will be able to process signals from any combination of these systems simultaneously, improving overall performance. To make GPS III transmissions even more secure, the military is also getting their own signal known as M-code. As you might expect, little is publicly known about M-code currently, but it’s a safe bet that it utilizes encryption and other features to make it more difficult for adversaries to create spoofed transmissions. (4/28)

Artemis III Will Launch No Earlier Than Late 2027 (Source: Ars Technica)
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told lawmakers on Monday that SpaceX and Blue Origin, the agency’s two lunar lander contractors, say they could have their spacecraft ready for the next Artemis mission in Earth orbit in late 2027, somewhat later than NASA’s previous schedule.

This mission, Artemis III, will not fly to the Moon. Instead, NASA will launch an Orion capsule with a team of astronauts to rendezvous and potentially dock with one or both landers in Earth orbit. The details of the Artemis III flight plan remain under review, with key questions about the orbit’s altitude and the configuration of the Space Launch System rocket still unanswered. (4/27)

SpaceX Ties Musk Compensation to Mars Colonization Goal (Source: Reuters)
SpaceX's board has approved a compensation plan for founder Elon Musk with goals as futuristic and celestial as the company's ambitions: colonizing Mars and ​running data centers in outer space. The details of Musk's sweeping pay package, which have not been widely reported, were revealed in the company's confidential registration statement ‌filed in recent weeks with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The lofty rewards dangled for Musk by SpaceX show the challenge of holding the attention of the serial entrepreneur as he prepares to take the rocket maker public. They also potentially set up SpaceX investors for tensions with shareholders of Tesla, where Musk is CEO, say corporate governance experts. Connecting science-fiction visions with accounting commitments, the SpaceX board in January approved a ​pay package for the world's richest man that will award 200 million in super-voting restricted shares if the company hits a market value of $7.5 trillion and establishes a ​permanent human colony on Mars with at least 1 million people. (4/28)

European Rocket Developer is Retooling an Abandoned Russian Launch Facility in South America (Source: Extreme Tech)
European rocket developer MaiaSpace has been rebuilding and retooling an old Soyuz rocket launch facility at Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The plan is to have it ready for the maiden flight of MaiaSpace's own reusable launch vehicle design by next year, with pad tests scheduled for this year.

MaiaSpace has been working to beat back the encroaching jungle and update the site for use in its future launch efforts. This isn't just a case of burning off some vegetation and rewriting signage, though. The facility also needed heavier construction efforts, and has already required cutting through major structural supports. (4/27)

Did Decaying Dark Matter Help Create the Universe's First Supermassive Black Holes? (Source: Space.com)
New research suggests that supermassive black holes that existed before the cosmos was 1 billion years old may have formed with a helping hand from dark matter, the universe's most mysterious stuff. Researchers think that it would only take energy equivalent to a billion trillionth of the energy of a single AA battery to "supercharge" primordial gas clouds, with the decay of dark matter capable of providing this. (4/27)

DoD Budget Proposes Space Operations Centers in Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico, and North Dakota (Source: Gazette)
The expansive $1.5 trillion DoD budget proposal for next year features $250 million for a new space operations center on Schriever Space Force Base. The center is one of four in the budget, which also proposes a building at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., a building at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., and a building at Grand Forks Air Force Base in N.D., budget documents said. Each building is slated to receive the same construction allocation, bringing the total investment to $1 billion.

The new buildings will support space control, space-based sensing and targeting and data transport, according to Air and Space Magazine, which first reported the story. Schriever is also home to units focused on GPS, satellite communications and missile defense analysis. (4/27)

California Commission Settles SpaceX Launch Lawsuit (Source: Courthouse News Service)
A California commission has apologized to SpaceX as part of a lawsuit settlement. SpaceX sued the California Coastal Commission after it voted in 2024 against an increase in launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base, with the company claiming the commission's move was political discrimination for Musk's views. As part of a settlement filed Tuesday in federal court, the commission issued a letter of apology for that vote and agreed it can't block proposals by the Space Force to allow increased launches from Vandenberg. The commission, though, said it remained concerned about environmental impacts from increased launch activity. (4/29)

SpaceX Wins Purdue Armstrong Space Prize (Source: Purdue U)
A SpaceX team has won the first Neil Armstrong Space Prize from Purdue University. The university announced last week it selected a team of five from SpaceX who led development of landing and reuse of Falcon 9 boosters for the prize, intended to recognize achievements in space discovery and innovation. The SpaceX team will formally receive the prize at an event in Washington in September. (4/29)

Artemis 2 Astronauts Visit White House (Source: Washington Post)
The Artemis 2 astronauts will be visiting the White House today. The astronauts are scheduled to meet with President Trump in the Oval Office this afternoon, according to a White House schedule. Trump invited the crew to the White House when speaking to them during the mission earlier this month. The visit comes as the White House budget proposal for NASA would emphasize exploration, including an accelerated pace of future Artemis missions, while cutting other parts of the agency. (4/29)

Appropriators Criticize NASA Budget Proposal (Source: Space News)
House and Senate appropriators criticized NASA's budget proposal, saying it does not give the agency the resources it needs to carry out its missions. At hearings Monday by the House Appropriations Committee's commerce, justice and science (CJS) subcommittee and Tuesday by its Senate counterpart, members from both parties said the $18.8 billion budget proposal was insufficient, calling it "disappointing" and "abysmal."

They reiterated concerns about cuts in areas ranging from science to NASA's education office. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman defended the request, saying it provided sufficient funding for priorities such as exploration. The House CJS appropriations subcommittee is scheduled to mark up its spending bill Thursday, while Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KN), chairman of the Senate CJS appropriations subcommittee, said his committee would use last year's spending bill, rather than the administration's proposal, as a guide for its 2027 spending bill. (4/29)

Pentagon Budget Request Moves Space Force Toward Space Tracking Role (Source: Space News)
The Pentagon's fiscal 2027 budget request is the clearest signal yet that the U.S. Space Force is moving into a new role of tracking moving targets from space. The proposal allocates more than $8 billion for so-called moving target indicator, or MTI, systems, which are satellites designed to follow objects on the ground and in the air in near real time. Such tracking has traditionally been done by specialized aircraft, but the Space Force says such aircraft face threats that make them "increasingly unviable."  The MTI mission is split into two parts, one tracking moving targets on the ground and other tracking aircraft and cruise missiles. The latter is more difficult, but Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said earlier this month at the Space Symposium that it is "technically feasible and grounded in demonstrated technologies." (4/29)

BAE Wins Space Force RF Satellite Links Contract for Golden Dome (Source: Space News)
BAE Systems won a Space Force contract to demonstrate an intersatellite communications technology planned for Golden Dome. The $11.8 million contract awarded Tuesday will test Link-182, a radio-frequency data link standard adopted for the Space Force's planned MILNET data relay network supporting the Golden Dome missile defense shield. SpaceX won a $57 million awarded earlier this month for a similar demonstration of intersatellite communications using Link-182. (4/29)

EraDrive Developing AI for Spacecraft Autonomy (Source: Space News)
Silicon Valley startup EraDrive is working with Northrop Grumman to enhance spacecraft autonomy with artificial intelligence. The companies announced a teaming agreement to collaborate on using AI in robotic missions, including in-orbit operations and supporting activities on the ground. One example of that work would be incorporating AI into inspection and servicing of spacecraft, assisting the Mission Robotic Vehicle spacecraft by Northrop subsidiary SpaceLogistics. (4/29)

SpacePort Australia and Aexa Aerospace Launch Joint Venture to Build Medical AI for Space Crews (Source: Business News Australia)
Moree-based SpacePort Australia (SPA) and Houston-based Aexa Aerospace have formalized a joint venture to develop what they describe as the world's first deductive medical AI designed to assist, support and treat spacecraft and station crew. The partnership, dubbed The Hamilton Project, is named after NASA flight surgeon Dr Douglas Hamilton, who served across 50 missions. The project aims to build an AI model capable of functioning as a medical resource for crew operating in environments where real-time access to physicians on Earth is limited or impossible, such as deep-space missions or orbital stations. (4/27)

UCF Focuses on Space Hospitality (Source: Central Florida Public Media)
The Rosen College of Hospitality Management has its sights set outside our planet with its pursuits of space hospitality and tourism. As humans inch closer to an off-planet settlement, there must be a space to put every worker and tourist. This involves not only shelter, but relaxation. Amy Gregory, the University of Central Florida’s Endowed Chair of Space Tourism Programming & Initiatives, focuses on food and lodging. She likened the space tourism industry to the cruise ship industry. (4/28)

NASA Needs Your Help Spotting Meteors Hitting the Moon (Source: Popular Science)
Establishing a long-term human presence on the moon is a daunting challenge. Daunting—but not impossible. One way to help prepare for our imminent arrival is to gain a better understanding of the frequency and effects of meteorite strikes on the lunar surface.

NASA isn’t only relying on its brave squadron of astronauts like the recently returned Artemis II crew to do the work, however. They need help from anyone willing to spend some time gazing up at the moon from here on Earth. For those ready and willing citizen scientists, it’s time to contribute to the ongoing Impact Flash endeavor. (4/27)

Machine Learning Drives High-Resolution Daily Soil Moisture Mapping Across China (Source: Space Daily)
A research team from Nanjing University has developed a high-precision, 1 km resolution soil moisture dataset for China covering the period 2000 to 2025, using machine learning techniques to overcome longstanding limitations in conventional data sources.

Soil moisture governs surface water evaporation, runoff, and the energy exchange between land and atmosphere. During drought conditions, soil moisture levels remain persistently low, while prior to heavy rainfall events, the initial soil water content directly influences flood formation. Despite the importance of this variable, traditional observation methods carry significant drawbacks: ground-based monitoring stations are sparse and unevenly distributed, satellite remote sensing is susceptible to cloud interference, and numerical weather models carry substantial computational costs as well as systematic biases. (4/29)

Amentum Hiring About 100 Workers in Florida for NASA Artemis Missions (Source: Florida Today)
Amentum is hiring about 100 workers to bolster staffing for NASA's Artemis III, IV and V missions at Kennedy Space Center, and a hiring event for job seekers is scheduled in Orlando. All job positions support Amentum's $3.2 billion COMET contract, which covers Artemis operations through 2033. COMET is an acronym for Consolidated Operations, Management, Engineering and Test. (4/28)

RTX's Raytheon Delivers Second Missile-Warning Sensor to U.S. Space Force (Source: RTX)
Raytheon has delivered its second sensor to Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Space Force's Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) Block 0 satellite program. The satellites, commonly referred to as NGG, will provide enhanced missile warning and tracking to address evolving space-based threats. Raytheon's sensor payloads use advanced optical designs and algorithms to detect the heat signatures of missile launches, including hypersonic weapon systems and other advanced threats. (4/28)

South Korea Nears Completion of Five-Satellite Network to Monitor North Korea (Source: Korea Herald)
South Korea is set to complete the deployment of its five-satellite military reconnaissance constellation this month, marking a major step toward strengthening its independent capabilities in the surveillance of North Korea. (4/28)